#37 Darren Hoehna, "That Programming Guy", on getting experience no matter what!
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Tim Bourguignon 0:00
Hello and welcome to developer's journey, the podcast shining light on Developers Live from all over the world. My name is Tim Bourguignon, and today I speak with Darren honi. There is a software developer from Microsoft and the founder of the that programming guy company, through which he does do things that he loves most helping people and tutoring in programming. And when he's not working, because this happens, he either plays video games or does chores. So he say, Hmm, and by the time this episode airs, he will be almost married. So I guess helping people and tutoring in programming are not the things you love the most after all. Darren, welcome to the journey.
Darren Hoehna 0:44
Thanks, Tim.
Tim Bourguignon 0:46
Did I butcher your name her there?
Darren Hoehna 0:48
Yes. Oh, can you? That's fine. My last name is pronounced hona.
Tim Bourguignon 0:54
Okay, hello. Sorry about that. That's a no. It's hard for a French guy to pronounce the hate the haitch. At the beginning, whoa, now. Oh, sorry about that. So that's what tell us. What is your life story? I mean, tell us about the detours that finally led to led you to working for Microsoft and creating the district ring company? Uh,
Darren Hoehna 1:21
sure. Well, the first thing I would say is, I never envisioned myself working for Microsoft, I just kind of happened to get at Microsoft. I know a lot of people are like, I want to learn Microsoft, I work at Facebook, I want to work at Google, like I just want to work. You know, I'm a type of person who works to live. But uh, so what got me into Microsoft is, I just kept getting better at my job, people like me, eventually, I was a vendor at Microsoft. So they got laid off, because they didn't have enough money to hire vendors. If you don't know, vendors are almost like the temp workers at Microsoft. About five months later, my boss from my team that I was working on coming back is like, Hey, did you want to work full time in my team? And I'm like, Yeah, let's do it. So yeah, interviewed and got the job. So yeah, I never wanted to. I never envisioned myself work in Microsoft, it just happened. My first goal was to actually make a certain money amount per year. And that was my goal of what I wanted to do. So as always keep getting better keep going, especially since I don't have a degree, a four year to gravity your degree. And since I don't have a four year degree, I knew that the only way I could kind of leverage and have my competitive edge was just keep getting better learn different materials. Just keep going.
Tim Bourguignon 2:53
How did you set foot in the in the IT industry? If it's not through studies, how did you discover this and, and learn all this?
Darren Hoehna 3:03
That's an interesting story. Um, so I got interested in programming because I wanted to make a better Sonic the Hedgehog game. Yeah, no, at the time. I really want to make a better 2d games. Since Sega wasn't come out with any good 2d games, it was like, Oh my gosh, I want to make my own haven't made a video game yet. But uh, because of that my brother in law, who's already a programmer started to help me a little bit. And then when I got in school, I started to learn programming. So how I got in the door, even though I didn't really have a degree was, um, way back in high school. I met this friend, her name is Casey. And we kept being friends in high school, and then in college, Casey's a year ahead of me. And so Casey got me this job at U haul. And for, I guess, instances, an international podcast. It is the self Moving Company of America. Got me a job at U haul. I was there for three years and about two and a half years working in u haul Casey, just out of the blue so to customer oh my gosh, I can make a better web UI than this. And the person's like, Hey, you know, I Hi, I'm handle hiring at this company. I'm a co owner, Wadhams. camion can do an interview, southpaw case he left for that job as cognito lockbox and he became a programmer. And about six months later, Casey called me and was like, hey, Darren, I know you want to be a programmer. You know, I know you've been studying going to school you want to join I'm like, yeah, of course I do want to be a programmer. So
once the interview
and Donna vows that I stated Rita lockbox are two years from that I moved To place called solid on partners. From there, I was a vendor at Microsoft and then got laid off and then got hired at Microsoft and full time. So it is a been a journey, I would say the journey of Darren hona.
Tim Bourguignon 5:16
It's cool. It's exactly what you want to hear.
Tim Bourguignon 5:17
Yes. So you started
Tim Bourguignon 5:19
directly doing web development?
Darren Hoehna 5:23
No, I was gone. I read retail lockbox. And whenever I got into the back end programming role, which I enjoyed a lot, lot more. Casey, on the other hand, was more of a front end guy, but I did much more back end. And I find that I enjoy now even though back and much, much more. Because you get to do designs, you get to figure out the architecture you get to do you actually get to work with code and design patterns. And should this work? Or should this work with front end web development. I mean, there's so much stuff going on, I remember I saw something that actually shows like a webcam can watch you draw on a whiteboard. And from that, it'll actually make the HTML code and CSS code that does your design. And like there's so many tools to do front end development now. Just do back end development where there's still coding involved. Oh, no, I actually, I'm in a development meetup. I went to one person actually said that she's like, I wanted to get into back end development, because there's so many tools for front end development. Now. There's Squarespace, there's Wix. And I understand if you want to do a more of a complicated front end, you have JavaScript, but that that's about it, you have so many wizzy wigs and so many tools to get you front end back end development, there's not that many tools out there anymore. If there is it's, you know, like them, here's a cue for them. Here's a cue for this, see, which doesn't have a standard cue class, just stuff like that. So I like back in much more. And I tell people in my interviews, I like back and more, even though it probably works against me, since everyone wants a front end developer.
Tim Bourguignon 7:16
Oh, I can. I can tell you some people will really do like that games. I read a lot of developers say I don't want to do anything. I don't want to have to do anything with fountains. Nowadays, it's moving too fast. And you don't know what you can what you should learn. And it's already outdated. It's, it's kind of a problem. But, but Microsoft is pushing with the Azure, all the Azure services into the back end. stuff as well.
Darren Hoehna 7:48
Um, I don't know exactly. I mean, Microsoft is huge. I worked on an Azure in the I worked on a team in the Azure namespace. But I didn't work with like the platform development I worked at, basically, I was at on a DevOps team. And I was on the pipeline team. So when I mean, my pipeline team is we acquired streams from other teams smashed them together in different ways to get different telemetry and presented it to another team, so they could be sent to customers. And that was back nd but it wasn't the let's make something let's do something. In comparison to the team I just joined last week, um, I'm on the r&d group of I'm in the r&d wing of the Windows device group. So it's literally like, here's a problem, how do we solve it? And it's much more in my opinion, back end developer II. And not a DevOps pipeline team. I know some people like that pipeline team DevOps thing I don't I'd rather sit down, work with the goal, make something, build a solution to something and package it into the Windows OS.
Tim Bourguignon 8:55
Yeah, that sounds more back end. Like you said, I've been I've been amazed how much importance we lay on algorithmic and, and, and logic. And actually what I can say, a person's age, but maybe 80% of developers do is actually puzzle game with just one service here and one service there and just funnel data from right to left. And that has nothing to do with algorithmic anymore. And when I when I picture back end development, that's what I have in mind. really doing some algorithmic stuff is what you have in mind as well.
Darren Hoehna 9:34
Yes, yeah. No, it is totally what I had in mind. I'm, at least at a place like Microsoft really, is because Microsoft is a very service oriented industry. You have Azure, you have outlook as a service office as a service, Microsoft Dynamics CRM. And it's a lot of services where you have to code for something that's already made. There's not a lot of jobs, where you actually make something Like, when I was trying to find a different job at Microsoft, there was so many to choose from. But a lot of them were were on the service side. And I wanted to get out of the service side and finding a non service oriented job at a big company like Microsoft or Facebook, or Google or Amazon unity is extremely hard. If I wanted something much more of the what I'm doing now and have to my my, it will be easier to find a job where it's not one of the big five or it's on a giant multimillion dollar multinational company. But yeah, I do agree. If you are in a job, where service is the big part, then you're going to have to do a lot of the pipelines of move things left to right. But as it's getting bigger teams become more and more specialized. For example, my coworker sagada, he knows his he has a friend who works on a team that is responsible for load balancing authentication requests to Azure. Like just one tiny thing authentication, but it has to be load balanced, because so many people log into Azure as and so it's from what I've seen that this big company, the bigger you get, the more specialized you're gonna have your team's
Tim Bourguignon 11:15
super crazy.
Tim Bourguignon 11:16
No, it makes sense. Anyway, it makes sense. Um,
Tim Bourguignon 11:21
how do you looking back on your,
Tim Bourguignon 11:23
on your path? What what key elements Do you think prepared you the best for what you're doing today? Or there's some some some forks in the road some things you say? Well, this definitely makes sense. Now that I did it. And I'm glad I did.
Tim Bourguignon 11:43
Hmm.
Darren Hoehna 11:45
I think the biggest fork in the road wasn't would just be the learning arm. Because when you're learning your first programming language, I mean, it's called a programming language for a reason. Even though it's not as a flowy, or flexible as other spoken languages. It is really hard, and it's a new language. And it really kind of taught me
Tim Bourguignon 12:09
how to learn.
Darren Hoehna 12:12
Really, um, and an anecdote that I want to use to get born into this learning thing is, um, I had a friend her name solid, a friend, her name is Lorna. And in the American school system, once again, does a college take pre calc one in pre comp two, in order to get to Calculus. So pre calc two is all about trigonometry, and Radia instead of degrees, all that other good stuff. And this woman, Lorna, she loved math, and then she's like, combat, that's great for me. Then she got to trick and she just was not good to check for some reason. And in her head, she's like, oh, obviously, math isn't for me, because now I got to a hard spot. And a lot of people, at least from what I've seen in America is learning programming language is their first kind of hard thing that they're doing on their own. And once it's hard, they go, Oh, obviously, it's not for me, in a lot of people don't have the drive to go and get something done. And that's what I encounter when learning a programming language, you know, we can all go online, you know, follow with our have our handheld over, you know, brought on the happy path to learn programming, and then our confidence go grows really high, where it's like, Alright, cool, I can do this. And then eventually, we get to a point where it's like, Alright, let me try to do something on my own, and your confidence dips so far. And it's at that point, I think a lot of people start to stumble, and they stop and like, Oh, this is hard. It's not for me, but it's the same thing, you know, the learn language, and learn the rules and everything. But you have to put those rules into perspective. But as long as you keep trying, you get the thing done, then you try it again, then you try it again and you try it again, eventually, your confidence will build up over time, you get to a point where like, I can do this, but it's so slow, that people don't see that the learning. And I think that's another important concept that I want to touch on is I'm seeing that you have learned. And this happened for me. I went to college I didn't graduate. So that's why I don't have the four year degree but I went to college into my um, one of my classes I forgot which one it was I was at the library waiting for waiting for my team to show up and somebody next to me in a different table. And they were learning the basics of programming. So the tutor was asking them, what's a Boolean, if you have an array, and it has five elements, what are the valid indices? How do you get the first index? How do you get the last one, though stuff and I thought to myself, I know these answers and I hurt myself as like this. I have been learning I know these things. And that was one of the kind of the turning points in my education. That's one of my confidence of myself and like I am learning, I do understand this.
And that was very nice, confidence boosting thing.
Tim Bourguignon 15:21
I believe it was. And
Darren Hoehna 15:25
I have another
Tim Bourguignon 15:26
huge recurring
Darren Hoehna 15:28
road, not not Roadblock, but I do have something else if I can say that. Okay, this is I'm about more about learning. But this is more about gaining confidence. Because I know a lot of people who go into programming are like, Oh, it's a solitary activity. I don't have to talk with anybody. But then they get to interviews and they're like, what I have to talk to people in front of people. Oh, gosh. This was, so as you know, you know, I was able to interview at Microsoft, I took the job. But my first interview, I had the imposter syndrome like none other. It was when I was mainly in my first or second year of college. arenanet is the people who made Guild Wars. And I managed to get in, get a place for the interview for their internship as a Chanel. So excited. I was like, yeah, I'm really excited. So I get to arenanet. It's a ginormous group interview thing, we're all placed into a room. And I hear something in the back. It's like, talking about red black trees. And I had just taken I think my first quarter of job, I'm like, wait, I don't know what a red black tree is. I don't know this stuff. And my thought was, am I in the wrong spot? I shouldn't be here. People know more than me. Oh, my gosh, I don't know what I'm doing. Um, fast forward, about half an hour, the hiring manager is talking to all of us. And that same person asked the questions like, well, don't be red black trees in the interview. I'm like, Okay, then I was like, I don't know where I am. I shouldn't be here. I'm gonna bomb this interview. Oh, my gosh. And I got to the interview. And that was visibly shaking. Like, I knew I was shaking, I felt. Now when I look back, I feel bad for the people who were interviewing me. Like, I had a great case. Like if I was confident, and I stuck to my guns. I know, I probably could have gone to the interview. But I was so just imposter syndrome, II, I didn't have enough confidence. I didn't get the job. But I just wanted to say, that isn't like sure I'm working Microsoft now. But I started in place where I was shaking during and needed my first interview.
You just got to work at it.
Tim Bourguignon 17:37
Yeah, but what would you say use it to yourself, if you were in that room, right now you were able to talk to yourself.
Darren Hoehna 17:46
Um, if I was able to talk to myself, I'll just say, calm down. You did this project that you're really proud about, just talk about it. But I don't know if that would have helped me. Because I've never been in a situation like that. Before I had to be proud. I'm talking about something that I did in class. Because I know they really liked it. Or they would have liked it. Because one thing that I know a lot of interviews once is like, how did you kind of think on your feet? What was this big roadblock? And for me? I was making this thing to be like, you know, is these is all the squad dead? And when I made this, I didn't know what Booleans were. So I had an array of integers, either zero or one. I was like, if there's zero, they're not dead. If they won, they are almost like the aliens or logic and see. So I know if I told people that they were like, Oh, that's really cool. Tell me more. But I did it because I was so shaken. So I would tell myself to calm down. But I don't know if it would have helped. I think I needed to take this first stumbling block to continue on my way into where I am now. And my dad used to say he still says like, we were going car shopping. And he's like, if you don't get the car, you know, it's not for you the same thing when I was interviewing for positions for a full time job in Microsoft. I went to one place and they're like, we love you. You're great. But you said this one thing, and we didn't like it. So we're not going to hire you. And I felt bad. But I was like, nope, if I didn't get it, it wasn't for me. But now I'm at this job that I love even more this team that I love even more. Like if I got the first job, I would have gotten gone on this team. So it'll it all evens out.
Tim Bourguignon 19:38
I understand that. I don't know who told me this, this before but ever since I've been I've been interviewing only with polo shirts. I don't wear formal shirts anymore. Always interview with with polo shirts, because that's the kind of environment I want to to work in. And so it's been it's been an interesting journey. At some point, sometimes with people looking you a bit weird and you realize, okay, they have a problem with the shirt. And this is a great kinara Canary, because now I know okay, if they do have a problem with the shirt, then maybe they have more problems with me and with the way I want to work. And I can hear this through what you're saying it's it was not meant to be a you learned a lot and the that's that's the way it was supposed to be.
Darren Hoehna 20:30
Yeah, I I totally agree. I don't know how it is in Germany. But I know in America, like I can usually walk into any software place for an interview and wear just jeans and a shirt because that's what most everyone wears. I think one interview that I did right off the job was I had them. And based on what's like a jammy shirt on rose, like when pretty down low. And it was a green shirt, and it just had the one up mushroom from Mario, that's a good life. I got the job just fine. And I know if I wanted to, I could just go decked out in the fall suit and tie if I wanted to, and like why are you wearing them? Like I don't know, because I can't.
Tim Bourguignon 21:08
I can't speak for Germany as a whole. I kind of left the development myself have been been in coaching for the past few years. So I'm kind of more more touching with management now. And so it's, they're not so happy when they see t shirts. polo shirts, this is still okay. Yeah. Have you been in a position to interview yourself as an as an interviewer.
Darren Hoehna 21:35
Um, I was I was going to actually, um, the University of Washington is like one of the big universities here in Washington State. And I actually signed up to do technical interviews for people. Unfortunately, I had to cancel because about two weeks prior, I actually decided to look at my on call schedule, and I was on call during that day. And I had to cancel, I felt like the worst person in the world because they were planning on it. And to plan on me being there. And now for students were dumb, couldn't go to good practice for an interview. I'm like, Oh, I feel so bad. Um, but besides that, I haven't had any time to interview I've spoken to a senior developer and a lot of people like new interviews and what we're looking for, but I have never conducted an interview myself.
Tim Bourguignon 22:24
Okay, um, do you have an idea of what you would be looking for? If you were looking for, for someone? With what kind of skills I usually asked this question a bit later in the interview, but but it's, it's a perfect segue right now?
Darren Hoehna 22:39
Um, yes. If I'm going to separate your answer into if I was hiring a junior developer versus hiring a mid to senior developer, for junior developer, it would just be really to ask them,
Tim Bourguignon 22:54
either do
Darren Hoehna 22:56
I want to say whiteboard question, but at the same time, I love with whiteboards. I don't like them, especially if it's like, if you're going into a job, but you don't have to worry about algorithms don't do an algorithm question. But I would want to see examples of them coding, so I might maybe get them a laptop instead, or like, Hey, bring your laptop, I want to see how you code. Um, so it might actually be for a junior developer, just be like, you know, pull out your laptop, code something if they know how to code. Because that's what the junior developers have been hired to hire to do is to code and if they don't know how to code, well, that's, that's not good. I'll teach you. Like, if you have a few if you know how to code with a mentary, I can teach you on the job. But if you're coming to the job, and you don't even know, like, how to code at all, you know, then I wouldn't hire you. So it really would be just to see how you could code and then talk to you about be like, you know, well, what about this? Or what about this? Or here's an interesting conundrum in your code, what's the pros and cons of each to be able to talk like that and be like, what I want to work with you. If it would be a mid to senior developer I would have much more trust I'm like, Alright, do you know how to code so I might not to see how you code but out asks you interesting questions and more of a design architect to weigh in let's try to make it a conversation to build something and not a Can you please sit down and code for me? Um, because obviously I wouldn't want somebody who just sits down in the corner and code one two something like, Can I talk to you can I work with you? You know, when the person and I don't have to get a beer afterwards, but as long as we can work together and get something out? That's much better.
Tim Bourguignon 24:43
Yeah, makes sense. Makes sense. Um, yeah, I love whiteboard questions as well. But all the trick questions. This is just make my my My
Tim Bourguignon 25:02
article, I get goosebumps.
Tim Bourguignon 25:05
Yeah. But why isn't one thing I really love to do is, is kind of similar to this podcast is get the person to tell me their story. And this is this is a perfect way to see if somebody is able to communicate correctly together this hour, their thoughts to summarize something to pick the important elements to navigate someone through something they don't know how often the other person doesn't know. And you can throw some curveball in there. Like saying, okay, I don't care about anything that happens more than three years ago. And suddenly, they cannot start like, like they usually do with with kindergarten, they have thought three years ago, but this This reveals so much so much. And I was thinking about this when you say whiteboard, because I usually also ask maybe, can you can you draw me something about your last project, some kind of not architecture diagram, but some some kind of diagram that understand what's happening. And you realize also where people start on the on the whiteboard, it just starts in the corner, it just stuck in the middle. If they kind of know the context in which they were moving, or if they have a hard time, figure out how to start, these are pointers in every direction to just tell you about communication, thinking straight summarizing, and stuff like that. This is usually where I start. Regardless, if it's a junior or senior, I pick something they should be confronted with. So either they alive or, or the last project and start with there. And that's usually a good way to also get them to cool down. So you are mentioning you were very stressed during the that that assessment center as at arenanet. Yes, and this is a good way to to keep the temperature down saying Well, you're talking about yourself, you should you should know your life. And you can lie Actually, I don't know your life. So you're supposed to be the expert there. And I've had good, good experience doing this.
Darren Hoehna 27:20
Yeah, it's um, yeah, the first interview is always is always weird. I would never do it again. I would never want to go back and we do that first.
Tim Bourguignon 27:30
I believe you, I believe you. Um, do you know, I will? That's the question I picked up during, during your your your story. Do you know how you learn personally? How I Learned? Yeah. Did you have some tricks? Do you? Are you a visual person? Are you? How did you figure out how to best learn for yourself?
Darren Hoehna 27:55
The best way I figured out is to if you learn something new to do it every day, but for me personally, is to also talk about it. I do know if I go spend 20 3040 minutes learning something to go to talk to my fiance Her name is tyranny that I'm like, Oh my gosh, tyranny Island this day. Here's what I figured out. For example, I'm learning Japanese and Japanese a lot of rules and you have conjugation. So it's like tyranny. I just spent three hours figuring out why the sentences like this, let me explain it to you. And now I can remember so for me, it is a lot of just talking to people. I was reading this some book smarter. 2.0 I think that's what it was. And he was talking about where there's the CEO or some high executive where the only way he could hash out things and figure out pros and cons was just by talking about what he needed somebody to listen to him. And I think that's what I need to listen to me. So I can talk into that effect. If I'm taking notes, or stuff like that. I make sure to say my notes out loud and not just internalize them, because I learned with writing and with talking out loud, so that's what I usually do. And if you work with me, I talk a lot to my computer and talk to myself. Yeah, talk it
Tim Bourguignon 29:18
was fun. Did you ever hear the term? rubber? ducking or rubber? Yes.
Darren Hoehna 29:24
Rubber Duck debugging? Yeah.
Yeah, no, it does. And I totally get it. And I know that's a very great way to debug. So I've actually had a co workers who couldn't figure out a problem and I just go Just tell me about it. Because I know because I bet we've all done it to where you go to someone's like, here's my problem. Here's what here's, oh, my God, I figured it out. Thank you so much. And then you leave. I know that's a thing. So I tried with my coworkers stock, but yeah, I'd say that's like just buy a rubber duck and talk to it if that's what you need to do. Some people just need an audience
Tim Bourguignon 29:57
through that through that. Um, Guess is an interesting segue into your your own company, the that performing guy. Yes. Tell us more about this.
Darren Hoehna 30:10
Um, so that part one guys, the program tutoring company, I started it because I was really tired of working for the man. Because right now, my income is tied to my time, even if I could work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, there's only so much money I can make. If somebody says Alright, you can get paid this many, you know, this much money per hour, I can calculate the maximum money I can make per year. And I was really tired of that I was really tired of the I have to have this monotonous schedule every day. It's the same thing. So I wanted to try and make my own company where I could kind of make my own hours and I could go You know what, I don't want accepting the people this day. I'm not going to accept any clients today or tomorrow or something like that. And it was up to me off on top of that it because I'm the one getting the money. I'm the one making the website. I'm the one marketing myself, I'm much more inclined to market myself. And did you ever think because of the job? Sure. I like the team I'm on. But if it's like, Alright, well, I'll keep the job. And I can only I can know, it will be if I can work only at this level to make sure you can have the job cool. If I work harder I can. But I'm not going to get anywhere. Eventually I might but I don't want to work 80 hours and not have the life in order to get promoted to levels. I don't want to do that. So it's like, let's make this company where it's my time and I define the hours. And eventually, I want to figure out a way to make some passive income with us with this. But I do know The first step is to work for myself. And then eventually once I get that on my belt, then I can be like, Alright, how can they generate this for passive income. So if I want to take two weeks off, I'm still making money. But, uh, the program tutoring part came from just that I really liked helping people. My fiance actually made a program for me for Christmas, and I'll see it on Christmas. But uh, I was really happy to sit with her while she was reading a book and just like, Oh, I don't understand what they did here. I don't understand their example, like, oh, let me help you, I really enjoy helping people. Um, and then like programming. On top of that, since I went to the depths of the despair, where my confidence level was low, I want to help people like, yes, this is gonna happen, it will happen no matter what you have to expect. And I want to help people with that and figuring stuff out. So could some my client, she's taken an algorithms course I've never taken an algorithms course at all I know, like the intro to algorithms like bigo and some sorting. So for her, every time she schedules a session with me, she actually sends me some of her homework and she goes, here's the questions I want to go over, or here's the things I don't understand. And I actually spend the time to go over the questions myself to do the homework, so I can help her better understand how am I just like, Oh my gosh, this makes so much more sense. So it's really just the helping people that I like. And the name of that programming guy is this because it was like, well, who do you want you? Oh, I went to that programming guy. Those program people that programming guy, which I like
Tim Bourguignon 33:29
I do as well. That's a really cool name. Yes. Um, how do you? How does it take place? I mean, practically, Is it some kind of remote pair programming session? Or are you do that,
Darren Hoehna 33:44
right now I drive to people's
a cafe to wherever they want to go. So halfway. So my client she is in Seattle, I'm about 40 minutes north of her. So we just decided meet in shoreline, which is a city in between. Last week, I did meet someone over Skype because she lived in SeaTac, which is like over an hour away from him like I don't want to drive there. And she couldn't drive to Seattle sweeted online. But I still want to do it in person because I much more like the one on one. You're physically here. I'm physically here, we're in the moment, you have nothing else to distract you. I can write on my notebook, you can see it. And it just, I also see that being in person. The flow of communication is much easier. There's much less of a barrier than it is on here because I remember the first time I spoke to people on Skype, it was very stunted because I couldn't see the person in front of me 90 sort I've been doing this for eight years. So it's just I like it on person. I do know if I can expand my marketing and expand my domain to be all national and to do that online stuff, I could probably get much more money, I could get many more clients. But I don't have the time because my first goal is to get to a point where it's like, well, I can't accept more clients because I'm working 40 hours a week, should I quit my job and then try to get more clients should and so that's that's the first goal. So right now it's just all local spices, like and drive to
Tim Bourguignon 35:25
make sense. Make sense? One One last question. Because time is running off. You said is tutoring. Um, what's the difference for you between tutoring mentoring, coaching and teaching, for instance, but why did you pick tutoring in this, in this case,
Darren Hoehna 35:42
I'm teaching is more of like, I'm one person talking to people. And I don't want to do that tutoring is much more one on one. And it's much more personal. So the teacher can go, here's a binary tree, here's how you service a binary tree. But intruder in something and go, here's a binary tree, I learned about the pre order post order in order, but I don't understand how it works. Then I could go Okay, let's write it out. Let's go through the steps. And you can spend an hour just going over the pre order traversal. You couldn't get that in teaching. Mentoring is more of like, hey, maybe let's meet up for some coffee. Tell me about your thoughts. Stuff like that. And like be like, you know, here's my thoughts. Here's what I think I think you're going the right direction, you know, let me put you in the right direction. But I don't do mentoring because mentoring is much more of a free thing.
Tim Bourguignon 36:38
And I want to make money. Yeah.
Darren Hoehna 36:42
And consulting is actually thing I want to get into. I just wouldn't know how but this wouldn't be it's what I'm going to do is kind of consulting because I do advertise and like I can help you get into software development. You know, if you're trying to get into software development, I can do this. If you're trying to learn a new language I can help you. You know, here's what I know. Let me help you on the way if you have any questions, you can email me, we can meet up for an hour, we can go through any things that you're having a hard time. So for example, I am one of my two plants, I did a meet and greet with one person's like, I'm just trying to learn programming ground ups. And like, let's do see, here's so much a charge. Here's a book you should get. And then come back to me if you have any questions for today. I've got back to me another client, same lady who was in SeaTac. She wanted to get into programming. I was like, Oh, you know what, there's actually a great coding school called skill spire. That's much cheaper, and it's aimed for minorities and women, you might want to look at that. And then she was like, Oh, thank you very much. I'll make sure to keep you in mind. I'm going to go look at them on top and tomorrow. Okay, bye. And I was like, oops, you weren't supposed to do that. But I did message her. She's like, that's really cool. I, you know, I spoke to them, the prices are good. And I'm like, Hey, you know what, I'm, if you have any problems, keeping in mind, you know, I'll be more than happy to help figure things out for you. So it just, it's, um, I know, I made mistakes. I'm going to go and there's part of the consulting this part of tutoring, it's mix of both have to find my feet, find my niche of what I can do. Yeah, makes sense.
Tim Bourguignon 38:23
Makes sense. Um, I would love to continue talking about this, but we're really reaching the end of the time box. And I have one more question for you. Yes. Um, what advice would you give new developers? Today, if you had one to give one?
Darren Hoehna 38:41
get any software developer job you can don't have the money. Because you need the experience over everything else. Um, that's how it was when I started. If we tell off box, I'm where I am. The average junior developer salary is about 60,000 US dollars a year. My first Junior development job was $32,000 a year. Did I like the money? No, was it more than my job? But you all Yes, but it was I need the experience. So when you're first out there, get any job you can even if you really don't like it. Once you got your foot in the door, then you can start making decisions of where do I want to go but get there stay there for one, two or three years, get the experience and then jump to another ship. But get the job first. That gives you the experience.
Tim Bourguignon 39:30
Thank you. Very nice. Thank you. Did we forget to speak about something? Do you have something on your mind we really needed to talk about
Darren Hoehna 39:40
now that was bad that and the confidence thing
is kind of what I'll when I open I want to talk about
Tim Bourguignon 39:48
cool, then we haven't, um, is there something coming up on your plate some something in the next month that you were going to do talks Articles something important to mention.
Darren Hoehna 40:03
Yeah, not coming up. But um, can I refer to other podcasts?
Tim Bourguignon 40:07
Sure, please do.
Darren Hoehna 40:08
Okay. Um, yeah, actually, yeah. Something I want to say is the cynical developer podcast. I forgot what episode, but I was actually a guest on there. And I actually more in depth spoke about my journey from u haul to Microsoft in an hour on like, this really speedy thing that I did here. So if anybody wants to listen to that, that's also really great like rags to riches story about how I ended up at Microsoft from a 30,000 a year job and u haul tax shipping and working in one of the multi biggest multinational corporations
Tim Bourguignon 40:41
will link to this
Tim Bourguignon 40:44
wonderful sense that no, I think everything's good.
Tim Bourguignon 40:48
Then, I guess we have a show. Thank you very much. great talking to you to end this has been another piece of developer's journey. And we'll see each other in two weeks by a small announcement before I sign off. 2018 is not yet over. But I am already well preparing 2019 and I need your feedback. please head over to survey duck dev journey dot info, and answer the few questions I prepared for you. Please help me understand how to produce even better content for you in 2019 and help even more developers are all on their journeys. Thank you